Mining
This section contains an overview of the occupational health status of workers in the mining industry (excluding oil and gas extraction). An estimated 567,000 workers were employed in the mining industry in 2001. Most of these workers were aged 25–54, (79.4% compared with 71.5 % for all employed workers), male (85.4% compared with 53.4% for all employed workers), and white (93.3% compared with 83.8% for all employed workers) (BLS [2001]).
Although fatal occupational injury rates among mine workers decreased from 1966 to 2000 (Figure 4–5), these rates were still high—27 per 100,000 workers for metal/nonmetal mine workers and 33 per 100,000 for coal mine workers. Both fatal occupational injuries and lost-workday injuries were distributed unevenly among various subpopulations in mining (Tables 4–1 and 4–2). For example, the 1998–2002 rate of lost-workday cases in the underground areas of underground mines (7.8 per 100 full-time equivalent workers) was more than double the rate for all mining (Table 4–2). Hence, surveillance of the mining population continues to be an important part of mining safety and health research.
Data in this section were obtained primarily from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) databases of employment and accident/injury/illness cases for mine operators and independent contractors. Major commodities covered under MSHA jurisdiction include coal, metal ores, stone, sand and gravel, and other nonmetals (for example, clay). In the following figures, the employer type metal/nonmetal—independent contractor includes contractors working at metal, nonmetal, stone, and sand and gravel operations. Data on coal workers’ pneumoconiosis were obtained from the National Surveillance System for Pneumoconiosis Mortality (NSSPM), which is developed and maintained by the NIOSH Division of Respiratory Disease Studies and is based on a subset of multiple-cause-of-death, public-use mortality data obtained annually from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
